Despite remarkable strides in the treatment of solid cancers, such as those in the breast and prostate, many cancers remain resistant to treatment. As new therapies are developed and medicines become increasingly individualized, a need exists for effective and early diagnosis and/or predictor of treatment effectiveness or treatment response.
One physiological parameter which has demonstrated predictive value for tumor type or aggressiveness, and response to chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy is tumor interstitial fluid pressure (TIFP). Tumor interstitial fluid pressure (TIFP) is a physiological parameter that is elevated in aggressive tumors. TIFP decreases as tumors respond to treatments such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy. However at present, the clinical use of TIFP has been limited, as conventional techniques for TIFP measurement typically rely on biopsy procedures which are both invasive and which provide only point-measures.
The inventors have previously described a treatise on the basis for TIFP in the publication Liu L J, Brown S L, Ewing J R, Schlesinger M. “Phenomenological model of interstitial fluid pressure in solid tumor”. Phys. Rev. E 2011; 83:021919, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. The inventors have appreciated that the predictive value of TIFP, and its measurement, may advantageously be used in combination with tumor imaging methods, and more preferably, non-invasive imaging methods, in the diagnosis of tumor type and/or activity, and/or evaluating cancer treatment effectiveness and/or therapy response.